The General / Three Ages (1923-1927) (Remastered)

[MifuneFan]

Three Ages just announced by Eureka, sourced from 2022 restoration by Cohen.

Buster Keaton: Three Ages


https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/bust...on-three-ages/

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Limited Edition Slipcase [2000 Copies]
• 1080p presentation on Blu-ray from a new restoration by the Cohen Film Collection
• Reconstructed original intertitles
• Brand new audio commentary by film historian and writer David Kalat
• This Side of Impossible – brand new video essay by David Cairns
• Under the Flat Hat – brand new video essay by Fiona Watson
• The Six Ages of Comedy – brand new featurette based on an essay by Keaton
• Brand new interview with Ian Lavender
• Man’s Genesis – 1912 short by D.W. Griffith that is parodied in Three Ages
• Video essay on the film’s locations by John Bengtson
• Archival recordings of Keaton
• A collectors booklet featuring new writing by Philip Kemp and Imogen Sara Smith

SYNOPSIS
The first feature that Buster Keaton wrote, directed, and starred in, Three Ages spoofs D.W. Griffith’s historical epic Intolerance. Like that film, Three Ages follows multiple narratives across different historical eras, which Keaton packs to the brim with incredible stunts and hilarious visual gags.

Across three eras – the Stone Age, Ancient Rome, and “modern times” – Keaton competes for the love of a woman (Margaret Leahy) whilst having to defend himself from a nasty bully (Wallace Beery).

The Masters of Cinema is proud to present yet another Keaton masterpiece in its UK debut on Blu-ray, from a stunning restoration completed in 2022 by the Cohen Film Collection.

[Azores26]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Three Ages just announced by Eureka, sourced from 2022 restoration by Cohen.

Nice! A bit odd to see "Three Ages" coming as an individual release from Eureka, as they released his best films on three blu-ray sets. Don't know why they didn't just put "Three Ages" and "The Saphead" (which they also released individually) in one set.

I'm not complaining though, the special features are amazing!

[Doomhunter]

I notice that Eureka has a video up on YouTube, whether anything can be gleaned from the YouTube video, no idea

Buster Keaton's THREE AGES (Masters of Cinema) 100th Anniversary Trailer - YouTube

From the Cohen site:

For the restoration of The Three Ages, five elements from the Cohen Film Collection were analysed, digitised and compared: three of them (two dupe negatives and one dupe positive) preserved by Cohen in Ohio and the other two (a positive print and a dupe negative), deposited by Cohen at the CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée. The restoration was mainly based on the second-generation dupe negative (RR3730). Additionally, the dupe positive (RR3729) was used to complete the first shot while the dupe negative (54416-21) allowed us to fill three missing shots, namely the very last of the film.
All of the elements analysed for reconstruction showed printed chemical decay and colliquation. None of them presented original opening and closing cards, which were reconstructed based on Keaton’s Our Hospitality made in the same year and by the same production company.

[kishiro]

Looks like it runs at about ~20 fps inside a 1080p (23.976fps) container. The (advertised) runtime is longer so I suppect this is slower than the previous editions (or missing footage has been found/re-inserted).

Do anyone know who made the score/music for this MoC edition ? If I remember correctly Monte Alto Orchestra (Rodney Sauer) made the score for the french 2017 Lobster Blu-Ray. The Kino Lorber release (both 2010 and 2017) contained a wonderfull score by Robert Israel.

Update: I found out myself : Rodney Sauer made the score for the MoC edition. It's not the same score he made for the Lobster restoration, and it's a different band of musicians (i.e. not the Mont Alto Orchestra).

So far I prefer the Robert Israel/Kino Lorber 2017 edition. I'm looking forward to this new release though. I hope they didn't slow it down to much (like they did with 'Go West', imho).

[Doomhunter]

I noticed a couple of informative reviews of the new release are up on Amazon.co.uk

[Doomhunter]

Originally Posted by kishiro

Looks like it runs at about ~20 fps inside a 1080p (23.976fps) container. The (advertised) runtime is longer so I suppect this is slower than the previous editions (or missing footage has been found/re-inserted).

Do anyone know who made the score/music for this MoC edition ? If I remember correctly Monte Alto Orchestra (Rodney Sauer) made the score for the french 2017 Lobster Blu-Ray. The Kino Lorber release (both 2010 and 2017) contained a wonderfull score by Robert Israel.

Update: I found out myself : Rodney Sauer made the score for the MoC edition. It's not the same score he made for the Lobster restoration, and it's a different band of musicians (i.e. not the Mont Alto Orchestra).

So far I prefer the Robert Israel/Kino Lorber 2017 edition. I'm looking forward to this new release though. I hope they didn't slow it down to much (like they did with 'Go West', imho).

Regarding slowing it down, as least from reading the review I mentioned above it does appear to have been slowed down. Though I imagine we need more official reviews than “Amazon”

[human_machinery]

Yeah. I'd love to see this compared to the Kino release.

[Doomhunter]

So I guess Cohen in releasing this in America as well in nov.

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=33254